0:00

I'm Met, I'm Null, I'm Ben, and

0:02

we are Stuff they don't want you to know.

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Each week we cover the latest and strangest

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in fringe science, government cover ups,

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allegations at the paranormal, and more.

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New episodes come out every Friday on iTunes,

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Spotify, Google Play, in anywhere else

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you get your podcasts. Welcome

0:24

to Stuff Mob Never told you from

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how stup works dot com.

0:33

Come and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

0:35

and I'm Caroline, and welcome

0:37

to the second installment

0:40

in our series on romantic comedies

0:42

a k a. Rom coms. It's right,

0:45

this is our whole summer series. So strap

0:47

on your seat belts. I don't know what's

0:49

a good movie theater like, so,

0:52

so silence your cell phones. Silence

0:55

your phones, although you're probably listening to this on your phone,

0:57

so don't silence your phone. You could

1:00

get some popcorn, an oversized

1:02

carbonated beverage. Perhaps, Yeah, let's

1:04

all go to the lobby and start listening

1:07

to episode two in our summer

1:09

series. Uh, and this is when we

1:11

start diving into the tropes

1:13

of rom coms. Are

1:16

so many tired tropes, and

1:18

this first one that we're looking at is

1:20

the one that I feel

1:22

is so common

1:25

in so many different variations and

1:28

themes across the

1:30

decades of rom coms that we have, and

1:32

that is the independent,

1:36

career minded woman who won't be tamed

1:39

except she will, you know, as soon as she meets

1:41

a man. Now is she distinct

1:43

from a career girl? Yeah,

1:47

well, career woman. And

1:49

then there's the working girl, working

1:52

girl, that's what I'm thinking of, Working Girl Melanie

1:54

Griffith. Of course, we

1:56

will of course list her in our timeline

1:59

of working women. So working

2:02

Girl the movie is about a working woman,

2:05

not to be confused with a trope of the working

2:08

girls.

2:11

Yes, hopefully all of our listeners are confused.

2:13

But eating popcorn, yes, oh

2:16

I know, I I actually do all of that. I'm

2:18

prepared for this episode because I ate

2:20

some popcorn and some of it's in my teeth, and it will probably

2:22

work itself out at like a really inopportune

2:24

moment in the middle of this recording. I can't

2:26

wait. Yeah, so you're just gonna see me making real

2:28

weird faces over here. Sorry, uh, and listeners,

2:31

when that happens, I'll be sure to describe

2:33

them to you in detail. So

2:36

let's get into the independent

2:39

career focused rom com

2:41

leading lady who doesn't need a man,

2:43

at least she thinks she doesn't need a man. And

2:46

of course I say need a man because all

2:49

of the you know, this entire genre is completely

2:52

heterosexually focused for the most part.

2:54

We will have an episode, by the way,

2:56

devoted to LGBT rom

2:59

coms, and we'll also have an

3:01

episode later in the series dedicated to

3:04

rom coms that focus on people of color,

3:06

because so many of the movies

3:09

that we are going to be talking about feature

3:13

white I want to say heroines,

3:15

but they're not so much heroin's. They're like just

3:18

leading women who need to be saved by a man.

3:20

Yeah, straight white women who

3:22

are usually really bad at walking through

3:25

like revolving doors, or

3:27

going up or down escalators, or generally

3:30

walking with things in their hands. Yeah, she might be a CEO,

3:32

but she can't carry a cup of coffee to save her life.

3:35

Oh certainly not. Um So

3:37

in addition to being generally

3:40

clumsy, what are some hallmarks

3:43

of this trope? So basically,

3:45

this is a woman character.

3:48

She's focused on her career, and

3:50

possibly she is so career

3:53

focused because she has previously

3:55

been burned by love or emotion

3:57

before in some way. Maybe she

3:59

had a bad example of her parents

4:01

growing up, maybe she was burned by a boyfriend.

4:05

Um. And she also views people who need

4:07

love as weak. People tend to fear

4:09

her. She's this scary, cold,

4:11

witchy woman. But part

4:13

of that is because she's just like a man.

4:16

She acts like a man, and she needs to be put

4:18

in her place. Yeah. Um, so could

4:20

you say that that she is kind of married to

4:22

her job? I could say that indeed,

4:25

And this trope I mean, in a way,

4:27

it's another form of a magical

4:30

makeover, because even though she

4:32

well, she does actually usually go through some kind

4:34

of wardrobe change. Out

4:36

of her yes, out of the pencil skirts

4:39

and stilettos, and into what Gingham

4:41

was loose Gingham or something. Yes,

4:44

oh man, I want to be that woman

4:47

in a Gingham Captain. Um.

4:50

But after she falls

4:53

in love, whether she even knows it or not

4:55

at the time, suddenly

4:57

she becomes more vulnerable, more

5:00

stereotypically feminine, and

5:03

open to love, and she realizes that her

5:05

priorities have been all

5:08

out of whack. Caroline so wrong. She's

5:10

been going for the corner office when she should

5:12

have been going for the guy. In the corner,

5:16

maybe office or just in the corners,

5:18

just like lurking, it's the guy in the corner.

5:20

I don't know. Well, probably Harry Connick

5:23

Jr. Based

5:25

on based on this genre, Harry

5:28

Kuneck Jr. Or Ryan Reynolds.

5:31

Okay, can I have for Ryan Reynolds right off

5:33

the bat? Harry Knnick Junior makes me so angry?

5:36

You all, this might not be your

5:38

popcorn face. But Caroline

5:40

has a very raised eyebrow. Oh well,

5:42

I do I listen. I'm not in control

5:45

of my eyebrows. Okay, But Harry

5:47

Connick Jr. I feel, I literally feel like I've brought

5:49

this up on the podcast before about how angry

5:51

he makes me in Hope

5:53

Floats with Sandra Bullock, Well maybe

5:55

I talked about it on our Facebook live that like, first

5:58

of all, his neck really bothers me. But secondly and

6:00

Hope Floats, he like has to coerce her into

6:02

being in a relationship with him and she's not ready. But

6:05

anyway, so that's why I opted for Ryan Reynolds. But the

6:07

message of these independent

6:10

woman lad rom coms, not

6:13

surprisingly are that love and relationships

6:15

are paramount, but also that women should know their

6:18

place and the key

6:20

formula and driving force behind

6:22

these plot lines, and we touched on this idea

6:24

in our introductory episode is

6:27

the heteronormative battle of the

6:29

sexes that depicts anxieties

6:32

about women's changing roles in society

6:34

basically, and this results

6:37

in a change and evolution not

6:39

for the man, not for society, but

6:42

just for the woman, because that's this,

6:44

this battle of the sexes allows

6:46

her to become a quote better woman. And

6:48

several of the rom com scholars

6:51

that we that we read for this

6:53

episode addressed

6:55

this idea, the

6:57

the almost drawing a line such a distinct

7:00

the line between men and women

7:02

and masculinity and femininity and

7:04

what is appropriate in these gender cultures,

7:07

and how important that is

7:10

to drive the conflict

7:12

and drive the storyline, but

7:14

that it has to resolve itself by

7:17

these two people putting aside

7:20

their personal interests, so the woman's

7:22

marriage to her career for instance,

7:25

and joining with a man to form

7:27

a long term union. And this is crucial

7:30

because, as to mar Jeffers McDonald

7:32

writes in her book Romantic Comedy, boy

7:34

Meets Girl Meets Genre, the basic

7:36

ideology the romantic comedy genre

7:39

supports is the primary

7:41

importance of the couple. So

7:43

you've got the scary, cold, witchy

7:45

career woman and like the you

7:48

know, slightly looser, more creative

7:50

man who comes in to save her and bring her

7:52

around to his viewpoint. Um.

7:55

And and this has to happen. The the

7:57

battle of the sexes has to be solved

8:00

one by the man so that they

8:02

can form this union, because that's what

8:04

romantic comedies are all about, although of course

8:06

we would be led to believe that

8:09

the woman is really winning because she

8:11

is romantically desirable and

8:14

people will like her more at

8:16

the end of the film. And in a lot of ways,

8:19

Caroline reading all of these rom com scholars

8:21

which I'm so glad exists, Oh

8:24

man, rom com scholarship is real

8:26

fun reading. Um.

8:30

What kept coming to mind those how

8:32

it reflects the

8:34

workplace gender role tensions

8:36

that have existed that we've talked

8:38

about on the podcast a number of times ever since

8:41

women first started entering,

8:43

like secretarial roles. In particular,

8:45

when you had the first man drain in the Civil

8:47

War, you know those old Civil

8:50

War rom com

8:52

Oh sorry, I was busy picturing a man drain.

8:55

It's like a big bathtub drain

8:57

with all these men's soldiers going down there

8:59

they um.

9:02

But once the Civil War ends, of course, unlike

9:05

World War Two where Rosie the Riter goes

9:07

home, you know, the women stayed in the

9:09

office. And that's where you start to have all

9:11

of these concerns about like, well, single

9:14

women are out of the home, they're

9:17

having these jobs, are making their own money.

9:19

Uh, these men might be sexually attracted

9:22

to them. Yeah, what's going on. We

9:24

have never been able to leave those worries

9:26

behind. Never, We've never really been

9:28

able to overcome it. And we got into sort

9:30

of a great sparkling, adorable

9:34

period with screwball romantic

9:36

comedies, which we talked in depth about in our

9:38

introductory episode. And and that was

9:40

a great moment to look at career women

9:42

in movies, UM, because

9:45

these women tended to be on equal footing, even

9:47

if not literally in the workplace equal

9:50

They were still trading

9:52

all of these sparkling witticisms

9:54

with their male counterparts. But

9:57

that isn't always true before and it

9:59

isn't always true after. But one big difference

10:01

with the screwball genre of the

10:03

nineteen thirties especially is that a lot

10:05

of those leading ladies who were subverting

10:07

those gender roles were simply

10:10

heiresses. They were wealthy women.

10:12

They weren't necessarily like working

10:15

women who were actively competing

10:17

with men in the workplace.

10:21

Lots of layers, so many layers.

10:23

You'll never watch Bridget Jones quite the same.

10:26

Oh, I know, and I love that you bring up

10:28

Bridget Jones because speaking about layers

10:30

and Bridget Jones, it just makes me think of the sea through

10:32

shirt she wears in the office. So

10:34

fewer layers. It actually made me think

10:36

of her her spanx like underwear. Yes,

10:39

yes, the worst layer, the tightest layer, of

10:41

course. Um. But if we

10:44

look not at Bridget Jones, who was a working she's

10:46

more of the working girl trope. But

10:49

if we look more at the working woman who is

10:51

the witchy executive, she is

10:54

Sandra Bullock in the proposal,

10:57

it's all about the classic Taming

11:00

of the Shrew. That's

11:02

that is, that is the thread through

11:04

all of this stuff. And

11:06

there is a scholar who looks at Shrew's

11:09

in history. Uh.

11:11

This is louise O V. S Vari, who

11:14

wrote an analysis for the journal

11:16

Comparative Literature and Culture pointing

11:19

to uh, the sixteenth

11:21

century William Shakespeare.

11:25

Yes, yes, yeah, I think you. I think

11:27

you have. He was in the movie Shakespeare

11:29

in Love. Oh

11:31

that's yeah, yeah, exactly with this little got um.

11:34

Well so, yeah, sixteenth century we get

11:37

Kate, who is the shrew needing

11:39

the taming, But she is just

11:42

part of a much larger and more

11:44

in depth and like centuries

11:47

old storytelling

11:49

trope that's existed across cultures

11:51

and across time. And apparently these

11:53

stories were supposed to be really funny,

11:57

but a lot of the examples that

12:00

zvari sites, especially

12:02

from like Eastern European literature,

12:04

are horrifying. Usually

12:07

involves a woman being

12:10

beaten to the brink of death,

12:12

often then wrapped in animal

12:15

skins. Yeah, I'm beaten some more

12:18

and maybe beaten some more and then uh

12:21

possibly raped

12:23

by her new husband. Yeah.

12:26

And what's interesting And I can't remember

12:28

which film it is at the moment, but it's from

12:30

the thirties. I believe

12:33

that has a variation on this whole Taming

12:36

of the Shrew, like the old

12:38

trope in storytelling, not literally

12:40

Taming of the Shrew from Shakespeare. But

12:43

this woman in this film marries

12:45

a man and to like set her in her

12:47

place, he ends up almost starving

12:50

her. Like but it's hot it's funny, it's a

12:52

it's a hilarious romp into a new relationship.

12:55

And and she's got to prove how cool

12:57

she has proved her metal by like putting

12:59

a with like eating stale bread and cheese.

13:02

Well, at least that film

13:05

did not also depict one

13:07

other hallmark of his

13:09

classic shrew taming stories

13:12

that involved the husband

13:15

torturing animals and usually

13:17

cats, in front of the wife. Yeah.

13:20

So there's this one story from Eastern Europe

13:22

that has the man he's

13:25

trying to teach his new wife a

13:27

lesson. Here's how you take

13:29

care of me, your husband, because I

13:31

can't do anything, and you're the wife, so you have to do everything.

13:34

So he demands that the cat

13:37

get him water to wash his hands. Well, you

13:40

know what happens. So then he kills the cat because

13:42

the cat doesn't bring him water. He demands the

13:44

dog go bring him water to wash

13:46

his hands, kills the dog because the

13:48

dog doesn't bring him water, demands the horse bring

13:51

him water to wash his hands. Kills the horse.

13:53

Then turns to his wife and says, you bring

13:55

me water to wash my hands.

13:58

Well, and I hope that. She then

14:00

pulls a Godfather move leaves that horse

14:03

in his bed and gets out

14:05

of their Yeah, I

14:07

don't think that's how it is. Yet I don't think it is either.

14:10

But at the heart of this narrative

14:13

is those power dynamics

14:15

between a married heterosexual

14:18

couple, and as Vesfari writes, they

14:21

for centuries, these stories of reflected

14:23

anxieties about insubordinate

14:26

female behavior in

14:28

a male dominated marital system. And

14:31

of course though they end with the

14:33

quote unquote happy ending

14:36

and atonement of the woman committing

14:39

to that submissive and

14:41

subordinate role. So if we

14:44

look at a timeline of

14:47

these characters in Hollywood starting

14:49

in the midnight teen thirties, there's

14:51

this theme of independence,

14:55

a woman's independence being her ultimate

14:57

foiball. Really, So if

14:59

we go to five, we have

15:01

Betty Davis starring in Front

15:04

Page Woman, which the title that sounds

15:06

pretty cool, right, front Page Woman, Hello,

15:08

she must be successful right now,

15:11

She's just a hapless gal reporter

15:13

who really wants to impress her reporter

15:16

boyfriend, who of course keeps undermining

15:18

her because but

15:22

she finally gets a scoop and

15:25

proves her worth despite the fact that

15:27

she is a woman and her

15:29

femininity makes her so hapless.

15:32

So this would be more of an example, I guess of a

15:34

working girl, because it doesn't sound like she's

15:37

cold, she's just yeah.

15:40

But it is a great example of just showing

15:43

well, what are what are women doing in the workplace?

15:46

So she's still that career woman,

15:48

she's still pursuing that job outside

15:50

of the home. But it's a great example

15:52

of people making

15:55

the movie who were uncomfortable with

15:57

an ambitious woman and had to

15:59

show her a kind of stupid, which makes me

16:01

think of Confessions of

16:03

a Shopaholic, right

16:07

right, right, And she is also that aspiring

16:09

journalist or aspiring writer, but she's

16:12

portrayed as like so

16:14

stupid, Like she can't control her finances,

16:16

she can't string a sentence together, she can't

16:18

get her life together, and like love

16:21

is the only thing that sets her straight. Finally,

16:23

well, of course, yeah, but in between

16:26

those two and whatever

16:28

year that terrible movie was put out, we

16:30

do have some good examples. Um.

16:33

We talked about this movie in our last

16:35

episode, uh nineteen forties

16:37

His Girl Friday with Rosalind Russell starring

16:40

as Hildi. So this is an

16:42

example of an ambitious career woman who

16:44

was going to give up her career for a

16:46

man, but she ends up

16:48

with the right guy, Carrie Grant,

16:51

who also loves his own career

16:53

in journalism. Thanks to this

16:56

falling in the screwball genre. Yeah,

16:58

I mean, and I of his

17:00

girl Friday. I don't want to just reiterate

17:03

everything that I said last episode,

17:06

Um, but this is, like

17:08

you said, a positive example in this genre

17:10

because Carrie Grant knows

17:13

how good Hilt he is and he can't

17:15

stand a to see her with her

17:17

bumbling fiancee who's like

17:20

he's not good enough for her, but also selfishly

17:22

he's like, she's she's the best

17:25

reporter I've got. I can't lose her. So

17:28

it allows her brilliance to shine.

17:31

Yes, And I think that's

17:33

probably the last best

17:37

example that we have in this

17:39

timeline, because when you go to ninety

17:42

two, they all kissed the Bride, starring

17:44

Joan Crawford as m j Uh.

17:47

This movie was described in Variety

17:49

in n two as quote another

17:51

in the current Hollywood cycle of girl

17:54

immersed in biz versus irresponsible

17:56

mail Uh movie, And

17:59

this is part of what one scholar called

18:01

the career woman's cycle that

18:03

sought to correct working

18:06

women's masculine behaviors with love.

18:08

So she's you know, before she finds

18:11

love. She has the severe hair

18:13

and the and the you know, power suits,

18:15

and to me, she looks great and

18:18

she's in charge. She's the boss lady.

18:21

But this is clearly something that must

18:23

be corrected well. And that's

18:25

the same year that Katherine Hepburn's

18:28

Woman of the Year comes out, which we're going to talk

18:30

about in more detail in the second

18:32

half of the podcast, but it also follows

18:34

a very similar formula. Yeah,

18:37

people are just not down with women

18:39

remaining powerful uh

18:41

and jumping ahead though to N seven.

18:43

This is when we get Annie Hall with Diane

18:45

Keaton in the starring role, and her

18:48

blossoming career drives a wedge

18:50

between her and Alvi because

18:53

she just doesn't need him anymore. And this is an

18:55

example of the nervous romance

18:57

genre that started to emerge around this time.

19:00

Because keep in mind too, like we we mentioned before

19:02

in the last episode that the seventies

19:04

and eighties is when you start getting more people

19:06

being like, oh love is

19:09

it? The solution of things doesn't really

19:11

exist. But in the eighties

19:13

we do have the heyday of women

19:16

in the workplace. Like up to that point

19:19

in time, like you have more women working

19:21

outside the home than ever before.

19:24

So this, it seems like this is when

19:27

you start to also have this ethos of

19:29

can she have it all? That

19:32

becomes the new question, not the thing in five

19:35

with Bettie Davis's Front Page Woman, where it's

19:37

like, obviously women are ridiculous

19:39

who want to work? That's just a foolish

19:41

notion. But now we've gotten to the point of

19:43

like, all right, well you got the shoulder pads,

19:47

you've got the money, but can you get the man and the baby?

19:50

Um? And one example from

19:54

that I could barely get through.

19:57

It was Broadcast News starring

19:59

Holly Hunt as Jane, and I

20:02

wanted to love it. I watched it a while

20:04

back, and Um, I was watching

20:06

it with my Ma Boo, and

20:10

he had to get up and leave because it was so ridiculous.

20:13

Yeah, it has been so long since I've seen it.

20:15

What makes it, I literally what makes it so

20:17

uncomfortable? I think just

20:20

the sheer tropishness

20:22

of it. Um. Jane is

20:24

the journalist at the center of a love triangle.

20:27

She's ambitious, but of course because

20:29

she's so ambitious, she doesn't have much

20:32

of a social life or success in

20:34

love. And so it sat back

20:37

and forth tension. But it all just I don't know

20:39

nothing. Nothing felt very genuine about

20:41

it. I feel like I

20:43

feel like when I was watching it, I do remember

20:46

thinking, just let her work. That

20:49

that was really the only thing I remember my

20:52

my impression being from that movie. Because

20:54

then at the end she ends up alone.

20:57

I just remembered why I hated it. She

21:00

cries all the time. Uh,

21:02

Holly Hunter's character cries like fifteen

21:05

times in that movie. Um.

21:07

And it was the strangest thing because you have

21:10

her yes, like super ambitious, um,

21:13

but also in private,

21:16

you know, she has this feminine

21:18

weakness. Listeners. I

21:21

know that a lot of people love broadcast news,

21:23

so I am so open to hearing more

21:26

positive reviews of it. But it was it was a tough

21:28

one for me to get through. Well, I mean a

21:30

lot of those a lot of those movies are one that is

21:32

not from the same

21:34

era. Uh well, when it's not hard

21:36

to get through for me, but it's from the same eras Working

21:40

Girl Melanie Griffith as tests

21:43

with sky high hair that she cuts

21:45

off because she says, uh,

21:48

you know what, a serious woman needs serious hair

21:50

or something like that. And it's so

21:53

that movie stars

21:55

her and Suppourtey Weaver

21:57

and Harrison Ford and Joan Q. Sack.

22:00

That's right. Oh, that's right. It's like cat

22:03

nip for me. I love

22:05

it. And what is so fabulous

22:08

about this movie because there's like a whole lot of like

22:11

uh, Shakespearean drama going

22:13

on, like Deception and Masquerade,

22:15

like that whole thing. But Melanie

22:17

Griffith is ambitious. She

22:19

wants a better role for herself in the

22:22

company than being a secretary.

22:24

So she ends up you know, I'm not gonna

22:26

spoil everything. I'll just the end

22:29

um, but you know, she ends up adopting

22:31

this persona wooing Harrison

22:33

Ford, oh so dreamy in

22:35

that movie,

22:37

Oh my god, um, because he's so impressed

22:40

by her gumption and

22:42

her smarts and abilities and

22:45

probably her haircut, I don't know. But

22:49

at the end she is allowed,

22:52

not only allowed by the screenwriters

22:54

to continue to be this

22:57

career woman, but Harrison Ford literally

22:59

packs her a lunch and tells you to, you know, have a great

23:01

day. Oh man. And that's wonderful

23:04

because that is a time well

23:06

when have we not been in a time of people being anxious about

23:08

women working? But like, this is totally

23:10

a time like coming out

23:12

of second wave feminism when you're starting

23:14

to get uh, feminism

23:17

being a really ugly word,

23:19

and oh, we're totally in post feminism now,

23:21

people, we don't need it any more. Women are in the workplace

23:24

and people are so anxious

23:26

about, you know, women being masculinized.

23:29

But here is adorable Melanie

23:31

Griffith being a badass in the

23:33

workplace and getting the job

23:35

and the man and Sigourney Weaver just

23:39

well, she flies into space and that's how

23:41

she became Ripley. Actually, and in

23:43

the movie Alien little known fact

23:46

one in Hollywood. Hollywood fact

23:49

um. So if we jump way

23:51

forward to two thousand one, we

23:53

see things have changed.

23:56

If we look at the Wedding Planner starring

23:59

j Lo I literal really walked out of that movie. Really

24:01

did you go see it in the theater? Number

24:03

one? Yeah, I was in high

24:06

school. I was young and dumb. Although,

24:08

as I confess in our previous

24:11

rom com episode, I love

24:13

a Matthew McConaughey rom com.

24:15

I find him charming. He

24:18

gets charming, you know. Yeah on that

24:20

plot line, I literally like, I don't even want

24:22

to think about it, but I mean, you know, she's super

24:24

driven. Event

24:26

planner, which is one of the careers that women are

24:29

allowed to have in these new era rom coms.

24:32

UM. And you know she's she's wooed

24:35

Wood I tell You by Matthew McConaughey.

24:37

Same year, though, you get Vivica Fox

24:40

starring in two Can play that game, And

24:42

she is this arrogant game

24:44

playing woman who's finally put

24:47

in her place when her boyfriend plays

24:49

those games right back. And

24:51

she's an example in a couple of sources we read

24:53

of the sapphire stereotype,

24:56

the domineering black woman

24:58

who doesn't need a man pushes

25:01

them away. You know, she's up ending

25:03

gender norms of of needing a man to

25:05

be the head of her household. And

25:08

oh, thank goodness, her boyfriend comes

25:10

in to save the day and put her in her place. Yeah.

25:13

The sapphire stereotype never ultimately

25:15

elevates um

25:17

the woman in question, but is used

25:20

to like subvert any of

25:22

her actual intelligence and

25:24

strength. UM. Now, if we

25:27

if we move in and take a sharp

25:29

right turn from that to two thousand twos

25:32

Sweethome, Alabama, we see

25:34

this other common theme that

25:37

UM that emerges in the two

25:39

thousands of

25:41

the Escape to Small

25:43

Towns like leaving

25:45

the urban for the small

25:48

town where you can finally discover

25:50

yourself, get away from the hustle and bust all

25:52

Reese Weatherspoon, leave behind your

25:54

fashion career in New York and come

25:57

on home and Alabama, y'all has some sweet

25:59

tea and fall in love.

26:01

Yeah, where she's able to

26:04

finally dust off that city living,

26:06

which is clearly false. It's a false

26:08

performance of whatever to

26:11

find her true roots in

26:14

rural America, which is like so

26:16

patronizing, it's so like. But

26:19

is that not just a rehashing of the idea we talked about

26:22

from It Happened One Night and similar movies

26:24

from the thirties and forties, where like, the

26:27

rich heiress learns

26:29

about herself by either

26:31

having to be poor and give up her

26:33

money, or Claudette Colbert and It Happened

26:36

One Night takes this cross country train journey

26:38

and and realizes that, you know, the common man

26:41

is better. Yeah, it's like rediscovering

26:44

these kind of homey value values,

26:47

right, which are portrayed in

26:49

films like this as so much

26:52

more superior and more

26:54

valuable than anything she could

26:56

have possibly learned as a business owner

26:58

in a city. Because that's an authentic woman,

27:01

you know, close to the home. And

27:03

in the following year we have another

27:06

update, but this one an update on Shakespeare's

27:09

Taming of the Shrew with deliver

27:12

Us from Eva, with Gabrielle

27:15

Union playing the titular role of

27:17

Eva, who is a bossy

27:20

perfectionist. Yeah, and

27:22

if only she had ll cool

27:24

j to come in and put

27:26

her set her right, oh

27:29

lll um. And then two

27:31

thousand seven's Knocked Up, which has had

27:33

so much controversy or we'll had so

27:35

much controversy around it because of

27:38

Starkatherine Heigel's comments

27:40

and Vanity fair So. In the movie, she's

27:43

a journalist. She has a slacker boyfriend and

27:45

Seth Rogan and he basically kind of

27:47

ends up the hero almost for

27:49

his evolution, like he becomes more

27:52

responsible and like decides

27:54

that he wants to help be a father, right,

27:57

Like that's kind of how it goes. Yeah, I mean, well he's

27:59

not even he became coms her boyfriend, but she

28:02

becomes pregnant after a one night stand

28:04

with him, and she realizes

28:07

it and it's like, oh, this

28:09

this guy, you know, got me pregnant.

28:12

I'm gonna keep it dot

28:15

dot dot, which was the point in the film,

28:17

when I was like, huh, okay,

28:20

so right off the bat, we have um it's

28:23

called an interesting choice made

28:25

uh by high goals, you

28:28

know, very conventionally attractive,

28:30

very successful, very put together character.

28:34

Um. And then she's

28:36

like, Okay, yes, Seth Rogan, you

28:40

You and I would never date in real life, but let's

28:43

let's make this thing happen. Yeah.

28:45

And she told Vanity Fair that she thought

28:48

the movie was a little sexist, claiming

28:50

that it paints the women is shrewe's

28:53

there, we have it as humorless and uptight,

28:55

and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun

28:57

loving guy. She was basically

29:00

blacklisted from Hollywood after that when

29:02

that happened. All the true story full

29:05

disclosure. I never liked her because

29:07

of her Grey's anatomy character. I just

29:09

haven't been able to. I just so,

29:13

if you had to go so, if you had

29:15

to spend the day with either Katherine Heigel

29:17

or Harry Knnick Junior, Caroline, oh

29:19

lord, would it be Ah?

29:23

She's really thinking hard folks. I

29:26

guess Katherine Heigel because

29:29

Harry Knick Jr. Is something about

29:31

him. It's so weird to me. But I do agree

29:33

with her assertion about

29:36

the women in Knocked

29:38

Up being portrayed as shrews, because yeah,

29:40

she's humorless. But also Leslie Mann,

29:43

who plays Paul Red's wife, is

29:45

similarly, you know, just always having to

29:47

keep Paul Red in line, whereas the guys

29:49

are laid back and funny and they

29:51

go to circus lay on mushrooms and it's luterous.

29:54

Well, there is something about Judd

29:56

apatow movies that leave a bad

29:59

taste in my health, because he they

30:01

seem to be very um

30:04

preachy about setting women

30:07

right, having them make the quote

30:10

unquote better woman choice,

30:12

Like even even um train

30:14

Wreck. I hated train Wreck because

30:17

even though like if that was a real life person,

30:20

if she were your friend in real life, you would applaud

30:22

Amy Scheimer's character for making better life

30:25

choices. But it was such to me a cinematic

30:27

cop out because it's like, oh, no, good, everything is set

30:29

right with the world where the woman is choosing

30:32

the relationship rather than

30:34

remaining single. And so it's amazing

30:37

to me, like when I watch Girls, for instance, which

30:39

Judd Apatow has a hand in, like I'm so glad

30:41

that Hannah horror Vath is allowed to be as terrible

30:43

as she is. Yeah, I mean

30:46

I train wreck aside.

30:48

I think that his uh comedies

30:51

are often more about the men and

30:53

women are just like things for them to kind of bounce

30:55

off of, and just about arrested

30:57

development and the fear

31:00

of aging. Um.

31:02

But yeah, I mean there there's

31:04

definitely some one dimensionality

31:07

that that often happens, um. Although

31:09

it's not obviously it's not just Avatae.

31:12

It's the genre in general,

31:14

because you have to have some kind of conflict, you have

31:16

to have foils, and then you

31:19

have to have some

31:21

type of happy ending. Although

31:24

of course there's the ending and knocked

31:26

up, which is um very graphic

31:29

and it is a crowning

31:32

in a in a delivery room. So

31:35

moving on from that, pivoting away from that,

31:38

UM, I feel like The Proposal from

31:40

two thousand nine starring Sandra Bullock is

31:42

like the quintessential working

31:45

woman film because she is

31:48

icy, she has those business

31:50

suits and those stilettos, and

31:52

she, you know, just tells Ryan

31:54

Reynolds what to do to the point of

31:56

saying, yes, you're going to pretend that

31:59

we are getting married? Right? Yeah,

32:01

no, I live. This is the movie I think

32:03

about when I think about this genre. I

32:06

think I watched it at home with my mother as

32:08

she dozed on the couch, uh,

32:11

and it was I think my face

32:13

was stuck in a perma like sneer

32:15

watching it, because

32:18

it's it follows that formula

32:20

where the icy career woman like

32:23

encounters an actual loving family

32:25

who genuinely care for each other and they're

32:27

earnest and their love and you

32:29

know, she's finally thawed by

32:32

Mary Steen Virgin and the guy who plays

32:35

Coach from Coach or the guy

32:37

who plays uh the granddad

32:39

and parenthood. Sure

32:42

I've actually never seen Parenthood listeners,

32:46

but yeah, she she finally was like, oh, this is

32:48

what love is supposed to be. And

32:51

so then she's thawed by Ryan Reynolds,

32:53

who well he does more than

32:55

just thaw me. I O um,

32:59

what I didn't real life, so I hadn't put

33:01

together before reading for this episode. Caroline

33:03

was how I think

33:06

that it came out. Yeah, it came out before

33:08

the Proposal two weeks notice, also

33:10

starring Sandra Bullock, and

33:13

she is also an ambitious

33:16

working woman who has no social life, but it's

33:18

because she is the Ryan Reynolds

33:21

to Hugh Grants billionaire

33:24

like the you know, zany billionaire

33:26

character. Now of course, you know, being

33:28

the exact like over

33:31

involved boss is

33:33

portrayed as like lovable with

33:36

Hugh Grant, and of course they start you know, they end

33:38

up falling in love with spoiler alert, Um.

33:40

But it's funny to see that she's played sort of both

33:42

sides of this this

33:45

trope. I do love Sandra Bullock though, oh

33:47

yeah, I mean she's a terrific rom com leading

33:49

lady. UM. And I also though didn't

33:52

realize I I haven't seen this UM,

33:55

but I think I think if you watched the trailer, you've

33:57

kind of seen the whole thing. But New in

33:59

Town Own starring um

34:02

Renee Zellwegger in a

34:04

very non Bridget Jones type

34:06

of role, which I think it came out around

34:09

the time as the Proposal,

34:11

because I've never heard of it. She's

34:14

got the pencil skirts, she's got

34:16

the stilettos. You know, they have

34:18

the boardroom scene where you know, she's

34:21

she's the lone woman, and she ends

34:23

up having to go to Minnesota

34:25

small town, leave the city for

34:28

a small town where she meets wait

34:30

for Caroline Harry

34:32

Connick Jr. But

34:37

in the end, she

34:39

is able to Uh

34:42

to have the job, to have a guy

34:44

and the small town. She ends up relocating

34:46

to Minnesota, but she becomes the

34:49

again spoiler alert, she becomes the CEO of

34:51

the company that she was

34:54

first sent there to manage.

34:57

Yeah, okay, I do remember, like I'm

35:00

I'm vaguely remembering knowing

35:02

about this storyline, but I've never seen the movie.

35:05

Like, I literally have no picture in my head of it. I

35:07

mean, I feel like it's it's pretty much just a

35:09

Midwestern version of the proposal,

35:14

a little bit of a knockoff. Um,

35:17

So I mean all that to say that, I mean

35:19

there there's very much a

35:22

formula to this. Yeah.

35:24

So, we mentioned earlier in

35:26

the podcast the quote career

35:29

woman comedy cycle.

35:31

This was a term coined by I

35:34

can only assume her last name is pronounced

35:36

glitter Uh, Katrina

35:38

Glitter. I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing

35:41

it, but it seems magical.

35:43

Well also, yeah, because it's spelled

35:46

g l I t r E. And

35:48

yes, I'm going to call it glitter too.

35:51

Yeah. Yeah, so, so Miss glitter Uh

35:54

talks about how in the late thirties we get

35:56

the emergence of this career woman's cycle

35:59

with d nine's Double Wedding

36:01

and the film Honeymoon in

36:03

Bali. And this sub genre

36:06

peaked around forty

36:08

two, declined through the

36:10

war, but then saw

36:13

a revival in the wake of

36:15

World War two. And that should be clicking

36:17

in your brain with what we said around the top of the podcast

36:20

about anxieties around women

36:22

in the workplace. And again,

36:24

this genre does involve the good old

36:26

battle of the sexes and the source

36:28

of conflict rather

36:30

than the later screwball genre that we would

36:32

see or or I guess the screwball genre

36:35

starts two starts here as well. But

36:37

this is different. Well, this is this

36:39

is post screwball, because screwball

36:41

is more thirties, right,

36:44

Okay. And then I mean basically

36:46

the screwball genre like couldn't

36:49

survive in a wartime climb,

36:51

right, That's what it was, Yeah, because it was so yeah,

36:53

so effervescent, egalitarian.

36:57

Yeah yeah, people were like, I don't want to see that happiness

37:00

and joy in equality. Um,

37:02

but you also have women going to work, you know,

37:05

that's the big thing, exactly exactly.

37:07

And so rather than

37:09

the conflict being all

37:11

of the witty repartee between

37:14

the man and the woman in the lead roles, the

37:16

source of the conflict in these career woman comedies

37:20

is the woman's career and the disproportionate

37:22

energy and time she puts into it, meaning

37:26

that while the woman might be in a position

37:28

of authority, the film

37:31

is warning us that her success

37:33

in the man's world

37:35

comes at a high cost, and that cost

37:37

is a social life, and that cost is a

37:40

love life. And so

37:42

we just see this heroine sort of

37:44

struggling in an unnatural

37:47

gendered position. Basically well,

37:49

and as Glitter also underscores

37:52

in her book, it's not just the job that's

37:54

the problem. I mean, it's it's the woman herself

37:57

is the problem, kind of like j Lo

37:59

in The Wedding Planner, where she literally needs to be saved

38:02

from herself because her life

38:04

is just become nothing. It's become nothing but a

38:07

job planning too many events, too many

38:09

weddings. Um. So the

38:11

guy comes in to solve this

38:13

problem, which is not how

38:16

do we become you know, better people together,

38:18

but rather, oh, how can

38:20

I become a better woman

38:23

that more people like? How can I become kinder

38:25

to my family members and more

38:28

liked by my coworkers or underlings

38:30

and also sexually attractive

38:34

to this dude. Yeah,

38:36

And so Glitter writes about what

38:39

is natural and positive in men, which

38:41

is power leadership, becomes

38:44

unnatural and negative in women, signifying

38:47

things like frigidity and repressed

38:50

maternal emotions like if only

38:52

she are more feminine and she could have all

38:54

the babies. Uh. And the woman

38:57

ends up in these films adopting a more

38:59

submissive role, which Glitter

39:01

points out is like, is this not her just performing

39:05

femininity which is unnatural

39:08

for for this character, for this person.

39:11

Um, you know, therefore acknowledging

39:14

the error of her ways in ever, in

39:16

ever having performed anything other

39:18

than true pure femininity. Well,

39:20

and speaking of true pure femininity,

39:23

this is where we start to see that

39:26

contrast really solidified between

39:29

the working woman Allah

39:31

Sandra Bullock and the proposal versus

39:34

a working girl who I

39:37

would say that Meg Ryan

39:39

and You've got mail is. While she is

39:41

a business owner, she's more of the working

39:43

girl because she's not competitive,

39:46

you know, with Joe Fox a k

39:48

A. Tom Hanks. Um,

39:50

I don't know that you can a k a someone's actual name,

39:53

by the way, Sure yes,

39:56

sure, um, but

39:58

yeah, so you have the more audible

40:00

working girls in

40:03

similar career focused movies, where

40:05

it's more the job is kind of

40:08

just convenient. It provides a meat cute

40:11

or it just kind of gives her something to do, flushes

40:13

out her character a little bit, but it's not the central,

40:17

you know, like the the crux of

40:19

her character. It's not the driving force of

40:21

the romance. Um. So with working

40:23

girls, you tend to have more secretary,

40:26

shop assistance, waitresses,

40:29

essentially any non threatening

40:31

jobs, and also food service,

40:34

uh, baking, these these

40:36

kinds of these more domestic

40:39

types of work. Yeah, things that are

40:41

an acceptable substitute for

40:43

the inevitable and eventual real

40:46

job, which is being a wife at

40:48

home, something that can easily just be

40:51

set aside because she has no real,

40:54

true career ambitions of her own anyway.

40:57

So maybe she was just doing it to make some extra money

40:59

and till she found that prince

41:02

charming and a

41:05

relationship that existed both on

41:07

screen and off screen. That is actually

41:10

such a wonderful illustration

41:12

of this whole like punish,

41:15

the career woman theme is

41:17

the one between Katherine Hepburn

41:20

and Spencer Tracy. So earlier

41:22

in the podcast, I mentioned that Katherine

41:24

Hepburn's Woman of the Year came out

41:26

in two and

41:29

as we learned from Ms

41:31

Glitter, who Caroline, I'm gonna

41:33

go ahead and say that she's my favorite scholar, or

41:35

at least my favorite scholar name at this point. Um.

41:38

Ms Glitter talked about

41:40

how this role

41:43

was part of Katherine Hepburn's

41:46

off screen comeback plan.

41:49

Yeah. So fascinating. So uh,

41:52

Katherine Hepburn, you know, who was very

41:55

non traditional. She wore

41:58

pans, and she was a handsome woman. Much she was

42:00

a handsome woman. She really was. Um

42:03

and and yes I have heard you listeners

42:05

who responded to our Prince

42:08

episode. We will do an

42:10

episode on Katherine Hepburn and her mother one

42:12

of these days. Um So anyway, Yeah,

42:15

she had a string of flop. She's like, how do I

42:17

get control back over my career? Well,

42:19

she ends up taking the reins

42:22

behind the scenes. She makes nineteen forties

42:24

The Philadelphia Story, the play

42:27

version of which was written for her,

42:29

and she secured the film rights

42:31

and Woman of the Year, which

42:33

Glitter says demonstrate this conscious

42:36

effort on Hepburn's part to reclaim

42:38

her star persona by

42:40

assimilating her otherness

42:43

into the patriarchy. Wow,

42:45

okay translate please. Basically,

42:48

in these roles Katherine Hepburn becomes

42:51

that career woman. She's beautiful,

42:54

she's smart, she's powerful, but

42:56

she's not hyper feminine, and she's

42:58

not hyper maternal, and thank god,

43:01

masculine, chin clefted Spencer

43:03

Tracy comes along the set her straight. And

43:06

an irony that Glitter does point

43:08

out though, about these roles is that Hepper

43:12

and traditionally, you know, wearing the pants,

43:14

actually never looks more feminine than she

43:16

does in these roles, you know. And in one of them, I can't

43:18

remember, I think it's a Woman of the Year. She's wearing this gorgeous

43:21

dress, this flowy, black, puffy, puffy

43:24

concoction. But at the same time

43:26

that she's wearing it, she's also exhibiting

43:28

super like anti maternal tendency. She

43:31

doesn't want to stay home to take care of the refugee

43:33

child she and Sam have adopted,

43:36

and she's leaving the man in the feminine

43:39

role of caring for the child. Well, she goes out

43:41

to accept an award, and

43:43

so even in that movie, Spencer

43:46

Tracy's character even tells her

43:48

she's not a woman anymore, even

43:50

though, as Glitter points out, she's

43:52

literally like the most feminine looking she's

43:55

ever looked in this role because she's so

43:57

she's trying so hard to drive home like, no,

43:59

look me, I can conform to these

44:03

image standards, these optics that are

44:05

set forth for this industry.

44:08

Meanwhile, I mean that

44:10

is an interesting like one

44:12

to punch with Philadelphia

44:15

Story and Woman of the Year because Philadelphia

44:17

Story, while yes we are in the you

44:19

know, the waning days of Screwball, it

44:22

is more of a screwball comedy where she plays

44:24

more of an aristype, but she does look

44:26

dazzling throughout the whole thing. I mean, she's basically

44:28

in like an evening gown the

44:30

whole time. And you have Carrie

44:33

Grant yet again like coming in,

44:35

um who romances

44:38

her for the second time.

44:40

If you haven't seen it, it's fabulous.

44:42

Um. So I wonder

44:44

if that was also an appealing

44:47

contrast, you know, to kind of have

44:49

like both of the um,

44:52

both of those types of characters played

44:55

in such quick succession. Yeah,

44:57

and I mean Woman of the Year really is

44:59

a perfect example

45:02

of this career woman comedy

45:05

with the woman having to then conform

45:07

to the man's expectations and points

45:09

of view. I mean, her character tests

45:11

and his character Sam get married after

45:13

a whirlwind romance, but you

45:16

know, tests she knows nothing

45:18

about how to take care of a man, and she ends

45:20

up putting her career first, which drives

45:23

Sam away. And then she goes

45:25

to her father's wedding. She has this epiphany

45:27

about the true meaning of marriage and commitment

45:29

and romance. She tries

45:31

to make amends to Sam

45:34

by cooking for him, but she fails because

45:36

what she's a hapless homemaker. She

45:38

can't cook breakfast and

45:40

he finally the decides to

45:43

stay and critic James

45:45

Agee, writing about this film wrote,

45:48

for once strident, Catherine

45:51

Hepburn is properly subdued.

45:54

Whoa yeah, man, Geeus

45:56

Wow. Well and what

45:58

a contrast to to nineteen forties

46:01

not Philadelphia story starring Katherine Hepburn,

46:04

but his girl Friday,

46:06

which is another love story between

46:08

two journalists, which of course, you

46:10

know elevates Hildy the cracker

46:13

Jack reporter, but in this

46:15

one, Spencer Tracy more

46:17

of the Slab is a sports reporter and

46:20

she's the you know, the sharp

46:22

columnust and her career,

46:25

you know, is kind of taken down a peg. That's

46:27

the problem rather than the solution.

46:30

But what is happening off

46:33

screen too, is Katherine

46:36

Hepburn's friends being surprised

46:39

that she also seemed

46:41

to willingly and lovingly play a more

46:43

submissive role in her and

46:45

Spencer Tracy's off screen romance.

46:48

Yes, Yes, and so. Glitter points out

46:50

that her career parallels

46:53

the structure of the career

46:55

woman comedy. You have this unfeminine, ambitious

46:57

woman who's tamed by the love of

47:00

a strong man. But the

47:03

taming, so to speak, is a ruse

47:06

because it was Catherine who was pulling all the strings.

47:08

She's the one who cast Carrie Grant in

47:10

Philadelphia story. She specifically

47:13

wanted him for that role. She was she

47:15

was no slouch in the business

47:17

department. Um, the

47:19

business department where you go and you buy your business

47:22

and and you have you have it picked out

47:24

for you. UM, still trying to find that department.

47:26

I get lost on the way. I know, I

47:29

know, I get lost in the sandwich department. But

47:31

um. Glitter writes that by acting out

47:33

her subordination on screen, Hepburn

47:36

regains her power off screen. Such

47:38

interesting contrasting dynamics. I

47:40

mean really haven't talked about gaming

47:43

the system, And by the system, I do mean the patriarchy.

47:48

I want that as a T shirt. Katherine Hepburn

47:50

like gaming the system. I don't know, somebody

47:52

who's funnier can can or an

47:55

artist can do that. Um. But

47:57

you know, we have the same cycle

48:00

basically of people being afraid of career women

48:02

again in the nineteen eighties really

48:05

through through now.

48:07

And this is something that Emery professor

48:09

Michelle Schreiber writes about in her book

48:12

American Post Feminist Cinema, Women,

48:14

Romance and Contemporary Culture. She

48:17

calls twelve the

48:20

post feminist romance cycle

48:22

that reflects not only contemporary women's

48:25

anxieties about their multifaceted

48:27

roles at home, in the workplace, whatever, but

48:30

also anxieties about women. So the

48:32

more things change, the more they stay the same. Well,

48:34

and in a more

48:36

socio political context, you have

48:39

the rise of neoliberalism, and

48:41

as that applies to feminism,

48:44

this is when things become more self

48:47

centered, away all about choice

48:49

and you're on your own and it's up to you to empower

48:51

yourself and climb that ladder.

48:54

Um. And it's

48:57

a time when, too, when feminism

49:00

gets commodified, which may

49:02

or may not be why a lot of these leading

49:04

women also you know, lead very

49:07

like comparatively lavish lives

49:10

on screen. All the writers have giant

49:13

apartments in New York. They all have killer wardrobes.

49:16

You get a movie like Confessions of a Shopoholic,

49:19

which gag may speaking

49:21

of the nineties. But one quick note Caroline

49:23

about neoliberalism

49:26

and rom coms, which that's a sentence I've

49:28

never said before. Um

49:31

that I read in a book by Betty

49:34

Kaklamana Do called Genre

49:36

Gender and the Effects of Neoliberalism,

49:38

is how in

49:41

this in this era, there

49:44

aren't as many female sidekicks,

49:47

like Sandra Bullock in The Proposal doesn't

49:49

have a sassy sidekick obviously

49:51

because sisters doing it for herself.

49:54

Which I was like, oh, that's interesting

49:57

to think about. Yeah, because in Um

50:00

Needless in Seattle and when Harry met Sally,

50:02

just for instance, those are two that have

50:04

great, uh like whole

50:07

sidekicks storylines. Those sidekicks

50:09

play a huge role. But it seems

50:11

like it's it's and we still see

50:13

sidekicks today, of course, but it's when you

50:16

have the films that are more like um

50:18

A New to Town, Proposal,

50:21

etcetera. With the career

50:23

woman, because Sleepless in Seattle, Meg Ryan's

50:25

not the ambitious career woman in that movie,

50:27

and she's not the ambitious career woman. And when

50:29

Harry met Sally, she's just you know, your average Jane.

50:33

And but it seems like, yeah, when you make that crossover

50:35

to know she's you know, head of the board

50:38

or whatever, like she's probably a feminist.

50:41

That means she has no women friends. Interesting,

50:45

so many layers, so many way

50:48

you know, I never thought about that. That's a good point. Catman

50:51

do kaclamanna do yep

50:54

uh zanna do um. Sorry, I'm not making fun

50:56

of your name. It's just like I'm doing word association. I

50:58

can't stop but shry her. So,

51:00

Schreiber points to this whole like neoliberalism,

51:03

post feminism, so to speak, era

51:07

as the source of consumable

51:09

fictional characters being served up

51:11

to women rather than real feminist

51:14

leaders. So rather than having a glorious Steinham

51:16

as a feminist figurehead, you

51:18

get like an Ally mcbeel, who's not

51:21

real. She's a concocted

51:23

creation of what

51:26

powerful women are supposed to look

51:28

like. Question mark. Well, and I think it's the post

51:30

feminist powerful woman because, especially if

51:33

we talk about Ally McBeal, the first

51:35

thing I thought about when you were saying that in this context

51:38

is the time magazine cover that came out

51:41

with feminism is dead. Alan Feel's

51:43

face, yeah, because her whole thing is

51:45

like, yes, she's an attorney, but she also wears

51:47

those micro skirts, lots of makeup.

51:49

She's always me she's a

51:52

wreck, and she's always in some like

51:54

falling apart relationship and she's

51:56

falling apart and her mouth is always slightly

51:58

open. You're right, You're

52:02

right, Um, but I mean bringing

52:04

us a full circle. She's married to Harrison Ford in real life,

52:06

so, um, so you really can

52:08

have it all. Letn't have Calissa Flockhart

52:10

on the show. I know I did actually want to bring

52:13

up the idea of having it all, because that's

52:15

what these movies, as Schreiber points out,

52:17

in this era, are trying to tell us

52:19

almost like you don't

52:21

need feminism anymore. We're past all

52:24

that mess. Like you can wear the short

52:26

skirt and have Prince Charming come

52:28

save you and still work really hard

52:31

and be the chairwoman of

52:33

the board or the ceo um

52:35

and you know, even if you haven't

52:37

frozen your eggs and you're still trying to make partner,

52:39

you can still have the perfect life. Now, now

52:42

that Prince Charming is here, and and that's

52:45

anxiety inducing because as we I feel like, as

52:47

we've talked before, there's no such thing as having it all, doing

52:49

it all whatever. Well, and it's

52:51

also it seems like the men

52:53

in these movies by this point are not

52:55

as threatened by a woman's

52:58

career. There's just that aspect

53:00

of like she just has to be feminized more

53:02

in some kind of way. She can keep working,

53:05

but she just needs to. She

53:07

just needs that Gingham Keftan Caroline

53:09

right, and I mean Schreiber told Huffington

53:11

Post that, quote nobody knows what

53:14

to do with women after feminism

53:17

because we are quote post

53:19

feminism. You have to have

53:21

a leading lady in a role

53:24

where she has clearly benefited from feminism.

53:26

She's a career woman, she's independent, lives

53:29

by herself, makes her own money, all that jazz,

53:31

But she still has to have that

53:34

romantic love. She has to

53:37

end up even if she's put it off to pursue the

53:39

career, she still has to end up in

53:41

that long term partnership

53:44

well. And I think an interesting example

53:46

of that idea on

53:49

screen is No Strings

53:51

Attached, starring Natalie

53:53

Portman and a handsome

53:55

man. It's not justin Timberly because

53:58

he starts. Yeah, mel coonis

54:00

in basically the exact same movie, Ashton

54:03

Kutcher. She

54:05

said, you can't mean Ashton Kutcher.

54:07

Ashton Kutcher. Yeah. So Natalie

54:10

Portman plays this, uh, this

54:12

no nonsense doctor, which is

54:15

one of the approved roles for a

54:17

leading women in romantic comedies.

54:20

Um, and very

54:23

much in a quote unquote post feminist

54:25

sense, Like she doesn't you know, she's

54:27

living on her own, she's successful, and

54:32

she thinks she doesn't even need a monogamous

54:34

relationship. So she's even just like having

54:37

sex. And that's even one

54:39

of the newest developments in the genre too.

54:42

Women like a train wreck of like women

54:45

openly having sex lives

54:48

but then being taught that, oh, actually

54:50

monogamy is better. It's

54:53

not even necessarily marriage. It's just

54:55

monogamy. Yeah, you better straighten yourself out,

54:57

sister. Get off

54:59

that man entrain. Um, what

55:02

about the man drain? Does

55:04

the man drain lead to the man train?

55:06

Yeah? I think so that's

55:09

where they end up. And tomar Jeffers

55:11

McDonald, who's another one of those rom com scholars

55:13

who sided earlier, points

55:15

out that you know, we're at a time when

55:18

most women are

55:20

in the out of the home workforce,

55:23

but career women in rom coms

55:25

are generally portrayed as incompetent,

55:28

like we mentioned earlier, cruel

55:31

or both. You're incompetent and you're cruel.

55:33

And she writes that she finds it quite

55:35

insulting that a career woman now is

55:37

something that is so frowned upon. She

55:40

says that these roles are basically

55:43

punishing the character for being

55:45

as out there and powerful and ambitious

55:48

as she is, and that, uh,

55:51

clearly, you may be at the top

55:53

of your job, but what you actually need as a

55:55

man preferably a husband. Although

55:58

again I would I would respond to

56:01

McDonald who I don't I don't know when

56:04

McDonald wrote that, but I would

56:06

argue that in when

56:08

we are recording this, I would strike

56:10

the husband. I don't even think that the

56:13

rom com goal anymore is necessarily

56:16

a husband, because we're delaying

56:18

marriage longer than ever before. But

56:20

it's still just like some kind of coupling, you

56:22

know, some kind of stable relationship

56:26

where you you go to dinner. Yeah. Now, the

56:29

yeah, that's the that's the end, is you finally get to

56:31

go out for Chinese. Um. Yeah,

56:33

but I mean the rom coms still exist

56:36

to alleviate the modern

56:39

woman's anxiety at putting

56:41

off marriage and commitment. Like, hey,

56:43

it's okay if you've been pursuing a career all these years

56:45

or getting your masters or whatever. Um

56:48

Like, don't worry as as we'll show you in

56:50

this movie. Prince Charming Harry

56:53

Connick Jr. Is still right around the corner. Well,

56:55

and I wondered too if there's in more

56:58

recent film an

57:00

anxiety coming through too over not

57:03

just gender roles, but also technology,

57:06

which I know curveball, um, but

57:08

I'm just thinking about it. Was

57:10

just the montage of woman

57:14

in rom com in Soletto's like

57:16

marching down the sidewalk talking into

57:19

a cell phone or texting

57:21

and not looking at anything around her, and that

57:24

optic right there is our

57:27

audience queue that she's not really

57:29

engaged in her life. You

57:31

know, things are just passing her by. She's

57:33

so focused she's missing

57:35

everything around her. You know what I want to see? What

57:38

I want to see a movie like maybe nobody else

57:41

would enjoy this, but I really would because I appreciate absurdity.

57:44

I want to see a movie where the leading lady

57:46

like, like, let's say she's a scientist, right, she works

57:49

in a lab, and she's

57:51

totally normal. She's totally

57:53

average. She's good at her job. She has

57:55

some friends that she goes out with on the weekend. But

57:59

she's living her life and she's fine, and like she dates sometimes

58:01

and you know, she's she's totally fine. But

58:04

everyone around her is still acting

58:06

like all the trophy characters in a romantic

58:08

comedy. So you've still got like Matthew McConaughey

58:10

like bumbling into her and trying to save her. You've

58:12

still got like the sassy best friend who's

58:14

lecturing her on like getting out there and all

58:17

this stuff. So everybody's really absurdly

58:19

crazy around her. But she's like, I'm just I'm

58:22

just trying to go to work. I'm totally fine, kind of like almost

58:24

a Daria in the middle of a

58:26

of a bleep storm. And

58:29

the end of the movie is her just breaking

58:31

it off with a guy that she's been hooking

58:33

up with and they're

58:35

fine, and they're just like, okay, cool, she's just over

58:38

it. I'll see around. It's just fine, Yeah,

58:40

no big deal. Those are actually

58:43

the closing words of the movie. That's the last

58:45

lit I no big deal, I'll see you later. Um,

58:48

I would love to see that too. Who

58:50

would play in the starring role, Ellen

58:54

Page, Ellen Page

58:57

could do it. Jenny Slate, Oh, Jenny

58:59

Slate. And she's just totally I

59:01

mean, she's just totally fine. But one,

59:04

okay, one thing I wanted to ask your opinion

59:06

on Caroline is sort

59:08

of the the flip side of the

59:11

working woman who has to be softened

59:14

and maybe her career focus just taken

59:16

down a pick. She doesn't have to just become jobless.

59:20

But um, obviously you know

59:22

her success is too great. But

59:25

then you also have more of the

59:27

hapless, bumbling working girl

59:30

movie where her career

59:32

is kind of enshambles, but then once

59:34

she falls in love then everything

59:36

comes together a Lah Kristen

59:39

Wig and Bridesmaids. She was

59:42

burned, She had the whole factor of the

59:45

hallmark of being burned by a former lover.

59:48

And she is very

59:50

clumsy. Um has

59:53

a meat cute, et cetera. But

59:55

it's only after she gets

59:57

set stabilizing factor of the relationship

59:59

that he finally gets her of

1:00:02

course bakery job back

1:00:05

on track. I yeah,

1:00:08

Well, what is satisfying about things like

1:00:10

that? And I don't necessarily mean for me, I just mean kind

1:00:12

of in general. Is that. Uh

1:00:16

In that storyline, similar

1:00:18

to train Wreck, everything

1:00:22

is tied up very neatly. Everything

1:00:25

is like set right, We're like,

1:00:27

okay, now she has a career. But it is annoying

1:00:31

that it takes the dude

1:00:34

inspiring her indirectly in one way

1:00:36

or another. It does take the dude for her

1:00:39

to be like, oh, I guess I should do something with my life.

1:00:41

Well, and I guess to One big

1:00:43

difference is that at the beginning of the movie,

1:00:46

those characters aren't just

1:00:48

like bogged down with all these stereotypically

1:00:51

masculine traits. They're not unlikable

1:00:54

to begin with. Some really like the likability

1:00:56

makeover. Yeah, but she is a mess.

1:00:59

She has a man. That movie is the source of so many

1:01:01

great gifts. And you know what, Caroline,

1:01:03

I'm speaking of gifts. I'm very glad

1:01:06

that that nineteen thirties Taming

1:01:09

Up a Shrew movie that you mentioned earlier came

1:01:11

out before the era of gifts that

1:01:13

would have the most horrifying gifts. Yeah, and

1:01:16

thank goodness, Yeah, all of those animal

1:01:18

storyline myth tropes

1:01:21

from long long ago were before

1:01:24

media in general. Yeah,

1:01:26

let's never bring those a screen people.

1:01:28

Um, well, listeners, Now, we're curious

1:01:31

to hear from you about this trope

1:01:33

because obviously it's there are many

1:01:35

different versions of it, from

1:01:38

the ice Queen all the way down to the

1:01:40

hot mess who is sort of reformed

1:01:43

in her work, And we want to know what you

1:01:45

think about it, who your favorites are, who your least

1:01:47

favorites are. Does Harry Conne

1:01:50

Jr's neck also freak you out? Really?

1:01:52

I mean, it's this whole persona, to be honest,

1:01:54

like, let's not limit it to the neck. Um.

1:01:58

Mom Stuff and also works dot com is

1:02:00

our email address. You can also tweet us

1:02:02

at mom Stuff podcast or messages

1:02:04

on Facebook, and we got a couple of messages

1:02:06

to share with you right now. So

1:02:12

I'm gonna start out this letter by saying, I'm sure Harry

1:02:14

Conning Jr. Is a really nice person in

1:02:16

real life. Well, anyway, I've got a letter

1:02:19

here from Allison about our st

1:02:21

D and s t I testing episode.

1:02:24

She says, thank you for your frank discussion of s

1:02:27

t I S. When I was in grad school, I went through a

1:02:29

program to become an egg downor I

1:02:31

had gone through all six months of grueling applications,

1:02:33

interviews, medical examinations, counseling

1:02:35

sessions, meetings with geneticists, and many

1:02:37

many s t I tests. After

1:02:40

my information was put into a large binder

1:02:42

of available donnors, I was selected by a family

1:02:44

almost immediately after that. It

1:02:46

was another grueling battery of medical

1:02:49

examinations, s t I tests, and at

1:02:51

this point, hormone injections. It

1:02:53

was a week before the egg harvesting win.

1:02:55

Upon walking into the office to pick up another

1:02:58

pack of hormone injections, was

1:03:00

unceremoniously told by an office

1:03:02

assistant that I had tested positive for syphilis

1:03:05

and would be removed immediately from the program.

1:03:07

There was no sit down discussion or information

1:03:10

provided me about treatment options. The

1:03:12

level of shame and guilt and concern for

1:03:14

my own health was devastating, not to mention

1:03:17

the worry over the poor family who had been

1:03:19

planning on being pregnant by Christmas. I

1:03:21

had no clue how I had contracted it between

1:03:24

all the other STI tests that had

1:03:26

been performed at this very reputable

1:03:28

Ivy League fertility clinic, considering

1:03:30

I hadn't participated in any behaviors

1:03:33

that would have put me at risk. When

1:03:35

I was presented this information and pushed the subject,

1:03:37

a doctor was called in who told me, in no uncertain

1:03:40

terms, the tests are virtually

1:03:43

infallible. I must have contracted

1:03:46

syphilis by engaging in some sort of irresponsible

1:03:49

behavior. I went immediately from

1:03:51

the clinic to student Health, which was right down

1:03:53

the road, and took another test, which

1:03:55

forty eight hours later had confirmed that the initial

1:03:58

test was a false positive and I did not, in

1:04:00

fact have syphilis. Before

1:04:02

the results were back, they took time to sit down

1:04:04

with me and explain that if I did test

1:04:07

positive, I would be treated with a short course

1:04:09

of penicillin. No shame, no guilt,

1:04:11

no trauma. Needless to say,

1:04:14

I had a meeting with the head of the fertility clinic

1:04:16

to let her know of the poor care I had received,

1:04:19

and she issued an apology. But the scars

1:04:21

I carry from that experience make STI

1:04:23

testing an uncomfortable experience for

1:04:26

me to this day. Dude,

1:04:28

Alison, I'm so sorry. That's

1:04:30

the worst a nightmare. Well,

1:04:33

I have a letter here from Banana

1:04:36

about our Hillary Clinton episode.

1:04:39

Banana writes, I shared the episode

1:04:41

with a secret pro Hillary Facebook

1:04:43

group I'm part of. I know there are many

1:04:46

underground pro Hillary groups out there

1:04:48

because people are either actively getting shouted

1:04:50

down by Bernie supporters on social

1:04:53

media or are afraid to share

1:04:55

their views in the first place. I've

1:04:57

been pleasantly surprised by the level of discourse

1:04:59

in this group, despite it being members

1:05:02

all driven by word of mouth. Many

1:05:05

people have expressed relief at having a space

1:05:07

to share their opinions and discuss the election

1:05:09

without fear of retribution. The

1:05:11

group is mainly female, but there is

1:05:13

an active contingent of men as well.

1:05:16

Yeah, it's interesting to me to witness

1:05:18

the relief and joy new members express when they find

1:05:20

us. I know you've done several episodes

1:05:22

relating to women and online harassment,

1:05:24

but it might be interesting to revisit

1:05:27

this topic via the lens of

1:05:29

the election. My own theory

1:05:31

is that Hillary supporters, especially women,

1:05:34

have been self censoring on social media

1:05:36

given the hostility from both the right and

1:05:38

even more sadly, the left.

1:05:41

There was a long thread in our group of people telling

1:05:44

their stories of quote unquote coming out as

1:05:46

Hillary supporters on Facebook. People

1:05:48

felt very real anxiety and fear

1:05:50

of retaliation. But we've been urging each other

1:05:52

to be more visible one

1:05:54

thing I hear pundit saying over and over again is

1:05:57

that Hillary isn't inspiring enthusiasm. But

1:05:59

I think they have it all wrong. In

1:06:01

fact, I think she's inspiring quite a bit of

1:06:03

bravery and her supporters. So

1:06:06

I wanted to share Banana's letter because I know

1:06:08

that we have a lot of listeners in our audience

1:06:10

who support, you know, other

1:06:13

presidential candidates, and I'm just curious to

1:06:16

get other people's

1:06:18

thoughts on the social media

1:06:20

climate, especially when it comes to um

1:06:24

the reactions people get when they

1:06:27

discuss supporting Hillary online,

1:06:29

because it's usually pretty

1:06:32

harsh, to put it, lightly, yelling

1:06:36

yes yes um. So

1:06:38

with that, listeners, we

1:06:41

want to hear all of your thoughts. Mom

1:06:43

stuff at how stuff works dot com is

1:06:46

our email address, and our rom

1:06:48

com summer series will continue.

1:06:50

We have more tropes to unpack

1:06:53

or lack of tropes, such as

1:06:55

where people of color in uh

1:06:58

rom comms? And where are the gay people us?

1:07:00

Okay um. You can find

1:07:02

links all of our social media, all of our

1:07:04

blogs, videos, and podcasts

1:07:07

on our website. In the meantime, if you head

1:07:09

on over to stuff Mom Lever Told You

1:07:12

dot com for

1:07:16

more on this and thousands of other topics. Is

1:07:19

it how stuff works? Dot com